AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She hesitates and glances up at the castle. “Thank you, I’ll think about it.”
I have the feeling she finds the place intimidating. I can’t blame her, considering how I felt about it when I arrived. The most intimidating place I’d ever been, and I was in the arms of the most commanding man I’ve ever known.
26
Zabriel
I’m coming down a stone staircase into a courtyard when I spot Isavelle talking and laughing with her bodyguards. She must have been down in the city, and she greets the various maids and guards she passes, and she’s greeted happily in return. I smile as I watch my beloved. How easily she makes friends, and how readily the people warm to her.
A true Queen of Maledin who will be adored by all. Especially me.
From my place a few steps above, I notice Stesha striding toward Isavelle. He glances at her with disinterest and then looks away again, pretending he hasn’t seen her from his towering height as he moves past my petite Omega.
Well, maybe not adored by all, but the dragonmaster will learn to keep his disapproval to himself, or I’ll have something to say about it.
A few feet past Isavelle, Stesha stops dead and stares straight ahead. I watch him idly, wondering what thought has struck the Alpha. He turns around and stares at Isavelle, an inscrutable expression on his face.
Isavelle has moved over to a stone basin for a drink of water and is working the hand pump while Fiala and Dusan stand a few feet away, chatting with each other and looking the other way.
Stesha approaches my mate until he’s standing right behind her, blocking out most of my view of her with his broad back. The smile dies on my lips and unease trickles down my spine. Isavelle has no idea he’s there as she washes her hands in the fresh water. Her hair is long and loose down her back. Stesha reaches out to touch it.
I grip the handrail, unwilling to believe what I’m seeing.
He lifts a tress of her hair and bends down to lift it to his nose.
With a roar, I leap over the wall and land on the flagstones. I reach the other Alpha in three steps, pull him around to face me, and bellow in his face, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Stesha stares at me in shock. Everyone in the courtyard looks toward us and falls silent.
Isavelle turns around from the stone basin with water dripping from her slender fingers. “Zabriel?”
Another Alpha touched my Omega. Another Alpha is inhaling her scent. Rage like I’ve never known before boils up inside me.
From the dragongrounds, Scourge lets loose an earth-shattering roar.
My unmated Omega is in the sights of an Alpha who is known by all to crave an Omega of his own. An Alpha who has intense feelings about Isavelle that I believed were dislike but are apparently something more sinister.
Stesha glares at my hand gripping his wrist and his eyes narrow. He wants to throw me off and snarl at me for daring to take hold of him, but I outrank him. I’m his king, and hetouched my fucking Omega. He’s going to explain himself.
The dragonmaster looks at me—not down in submission but right at me—and in a surly tone he mutters, “Apologies.”
My temper ratchets up even higher. “I asked you a question. Why were you touching my Omega?”
Isavelle turns to Stesha in astonishment. “You were doing what?”
He opens his mouth, and for an instant, he’s about to correct her.You were doing what, dragonmaster?
I clench his arm even tighter. “Don’t even fucking look at her.”
Out of all the Alphas in the castle, I thought I could trust Stesha. I thought I could rely on him no matter what. He has the personality of a thorny vine, but he’s a scrupulous observer of the rules that govern our designations, and I believed that he would be the first Alpha to defend my Omega if she were threatened in my absence.
It seems I’ve been grossly mistaken. Now that I think about it, there’s been something off about Stesha since we emerged beneath the mountain. He’s treated Isavelle with disrespect, calling her a brat. He’s treated me with disrespect as well, but I brushed that off, telling myself that a man as stubborn as Stesha needed time to adjust to a new king. Isavelle took an instant dislike to Stesha. What if her instincts were right and mine were not? Maybe she sensed he’s a threat to her, and I didn’t listen.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Fiala and Dusan hurry forward, put their hands on Isavelle’s shoulders, and draw her away from us.
Though it makes his nostrils flare in disgust and fury, Stesha says, “I apologize, Zabriel. I made a mistake.”
I let go of his arm but step closer to him, crowding him against the wall with my body. Intimidating him into backing down. Daring him to strike me. I don’t care which he gives me, his submission or retaliation. I hope he lashes out so I can beat him to a pulp.
